ENCINITAS — Cardiff 101 Main Street Association recently changed the name of a popular walking parkway in Cardiff to honor a large donation by the George and Betty Harbaugh Charitable Foundation for future beautification and design efforts.
The parkway, which has for years been known as Carpentier Parkway, has been renamed the Harbaugh Seaside Parkway. The Harbaugh family foundation pledged $110,000 over four years to the newly formed Cardiff-by-the-Sea Foundation, which will oversee the beautification efforts along the parkway.
“The grant from the Harbaugh Foundation will now speed up those improvements,” said Ryan Childs, Cardiff Foundation president. “We look forward to collaborating with the community on park cultivation and memorializing the history and people who have had a hand in what the park is today.”
Cardiff 101, which has maintained the parkway — which owned by North County Transit District — since the 1960s, approved the naming request, which came from the newly formed foundation.
“The park has had a couple of different names over the years, but in agreement with the donation made by the Harbaugh foundation, we named the park in the family’s honor,” said Annika Walden, CEO of Cardiff 101 Main Street Association.
The Harbaugh family foundation has been known in the Cardiff and Solana Beach communities for their philanthropy, including a $1.15 million donation to toward the preservation of Gateway Park in Solana Beach, which was then named George and Betty Harbaugh Seaside Trails.
“We thought that it would be a perfect match for them to be involved with the (Carpentier) project,” Walden said.
The $110,000 donation will go toward maintaining and modernizing the pathway, which has been popular with the locals over the years. Previously, Cardiff 101 partnered with the organizers of the Cardiff Kook Run to raise money for maintenance of the parkway, but the two groups severed ties in an acrimonious separation that wound up in a lawsuit.
That lawsuit, in which Cardiff 101 sued the Kook race organizers for using the statue’s likeness without a licensing agreement from the business organization, was recently settled.
Walden said that the renovated parkway will pay homage to Orville Carpentier, the late Chamber of Commerce president for whom the parkway was renamed in 1997. It will also recognize the contribution of other residents who have helped maintain it over the years, including Linda Lee, a local horticulturist.
The Cardiff-by-the-Sea Foundation was formed last July to provide a funding source for community aesthetic, cultural and environmental improvements.
